I try to calm my breath as I lace up my skates. I was preparing myself to hop on the ice and give my best performance yet. The scouts are here, and if I want to make the NHL, I need to impress them. This is my shot. What I’ve been working for since I was a kid. Right now, is my chance to prove I’m good enough. No pressure.

There’s a learning curve to dealing with the pressures of junior hockey. Being in a place of playing at a high level while also aiming to reach an even bigger goal. It’s a unique position to be in. One that can cause serious mental health problems if you don’t adopt the right coping skills.

Paulie O’Byrne knows this feeling all too well. His experiences in junior hockey left him homeless and struggling with addiction.

“I had no coping skills,” he said, sighing, “I was sexually abused by my coach, and I didn’t say anything for a while–I went downhill real fast. I didn’t one day just say, ‘You know, I want to give homelessness a try,’ I just didn’t have any coping skills.”

O’Byrne has been working with the Knights as a Mental Health Specialist for a couple of years now. He said his position is not a common one, but an increasingly necessary one.

“I work with the 16 to 20 year old age group. That’s four years of a pretty influential age group in both physical and mental development.”

Despite the influence the Ontario Hockey League (OHL) has in these players’ lives, there is a lack of acknowledgment of the mental health side of the game. The Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) has little direct services for the players.

“[The CMHA] do about three hours of training with each team,” O’Byrne said, adding he doesn’t believe that’s enough. “Youth suicides are on a huge rise. There’s social pressure, coaching pressure, parental pressure. If kids don’t know how to cope with pressure or to live with it or to manage it, it’s detrimental.”

Although O’Byrne was the first to hold the position of Mental Health Specialist, more teams are looking to them as a guide. Owen Sound followed soon after the Knights and adopted their own position of Mental Health Specialist to the team.

O’Byrne explained that there’s a difference between talking to someone like him and talking to a coach.

“It’s more of a relationship, like a brotherhood. I have no influence in playing time. I think them knowing that makes it easier to open up.”

What he does is a mix of therapy and collecting data. His job is to know where the group is at, as well as where each individual player is mentally. He works through mental problems players might be facing to help relieve symptoms of anxiety or depression as well as provides them with coping skills to help them deal with these issues.

O’Byrne said that although there are still improvements that need to be made, they have come a long way from where they used to be.

“We’re kind of behind, but we’re catching up and it feels really cool getting to be a part of it.”